The Open Market Blog

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

My earlier post about the incompetence of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which generally fails to detect explosive ingredients and fake bombs, was understated.

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Today's Financial Times has an -- unintentionally -- hilarious op ed by James Wilsdon of the think tank Demos, on how Muslim societies…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

The administration of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has blocked a new power plant from being built, despite looming energy shortages, because, like virtually all…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Hugo Chavez’s insistences notwithstanding, not everyone in Venezuela is enamored of Che Guevara, as Australia’s Herald Sun reports: A GROUP of Venezuelans shattered…

• By: Julie Walsh
• 10/19/2007

In “Housing Construction Plunges” (Examiner, October 18, 2007), the author, Martin Crutsinger, correctly identifies the reasons for the current problems in the ever-important housing…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 10/19/2007

Neil Clark, who usually writes for the Guardian, on his blog, mocks what he calls another commenter’s “over the top” Che Guevara analogy. And…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

Since the government took over aviation security since 9/11, security has actually gotten worse. Fake bombs usually pass undetected by the Transportation Security Administration…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/19/2007

The upholding of Bush’s SCHIP veto is no big victory for spending control. As reported in Time magazine online on Wednesday, Bush wasn’t exactly…

• 10/18/2007

Today, the House Natural Resources Committee is considering the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, sponsored by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT).

• By: Angela Logomasini
• 10/18/2007

Today’s USA Today reports on the growing trend among city lawmakers to tax, ban, and otherwise regulate bottled water. CEI recently highlighted the absurdity…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The House of Representatives just failed to override Bush’s veto of a bill that would have greatly expanded the cost and scope of the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The Financial Times has an article on how the agricultural subsidies contained in the Farm Bill seemingly promote obesity by encouraging the production and…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/18/2007

Alex, I mostly agree with your post but, well, I think that private enforcement of law in Medieval Iceland is an example of exactly…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

CEI’s The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General described how wealthy trial lawyers like the indicted Milberg Weiss law firm have bankrolled state…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 10/18/2007

Today the house is expected to vote to override President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill—which would increase the funding by…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

Michael Cannon lists the nine cardinal sins of the federal SCHIP health care program, whose exploding costs led President Bush to veto a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia recently upheld an FCC ruling that deregulated high-speed internet service over traditional phone lines. The…

• By: Iain Murray
• 10/17/2007

This one takes the cake. If there was a Nobel Prize for Absurd Assertions (hmmm, perhaps there is) RFK Jr would win it hands down…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today discussing all the ways that expanded ethanol production resulting from costly federal ethanol subsidies is harming…

• By: Iain Murray
• 10/17/2007

He didn’t win the Eleanor Roosevelt prize this year. But somebody equally worthy did.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

Mortgage lenders face a Hobson’s Choice. When a lender doesn’t provide mortgage loans to people in high-crime areas with high default rates, that’s considered racist…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

At Slate, Tim Wu explores how the federal criminal code has become so vast that almost anyone can be prosecuted for violating some obscure…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 10/17/2007

Reuters released a story today about Professor Eric Maskin, one of three American economists to receive the Nobel prize for economics. In it…

• By: Lene Johansen
• 10/17/2007

A world where there’s not enough electricity. This story I found in the Philadelphia Inquirer this weekend is a view into where life will…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

As I explain below, federal meddling will merely delay the mortgage meltdown and make the ultimate implosion of the mortgage industry all the worse.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Mortgage-backed securities have collapsed in value, and aren't worth as much as once thought. That's becoming clear as increasing numbers of homeowners default on their…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Volunteer fire departments would be endangered by a union-backed bill that has overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives and now is pending in the…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/16/2007

Government finances are suffering, spending on the Iraq war continues to escalate while Social Security and Medicare continue to head over the financial cliff. Yet…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 10/15/2007

Wayne told me about an NPR story about credit unions getting into the payday loan alternative business. My only comment is: Why didn’t they…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 10/15/2007

The white space debate is intensifying, with the National Association of Broadcasters running television ads showing a grandmother watching pixilated football thanks to unlicensed wireless…